A Hairy Situation
by Alleonh
Summary: Status: Finished for now. Non Yaoi. Set pre Gensomaden when Goku is in need of his first haircut. What's a Sanzo to do?


Disclaimer: I Own Saiyuki! Yes I do! By the way, hell froze over, Goku's not hungry, Gojyo hates women, Hakkai's an asshole, and Sanzo is Mother Theresa.

Wait...none of that's true? Darn...guess I don't own it after all...

A/N: Part one of two. Just a simple fic about Goku's first haircut care of everyone's favorite Sanzo monk. It was meant to be a one shot, but I decided to make it two chapters instead. I'm hoping that posting the first chapter will jump start my lazy muse out of the writing slump I've been in lately so I can finish chapter two.

Rating: Teen to be safe. Nothing but a little language. Because Sanzo absolutely cannot be wrote without cursing. To do so woulddefy some kind of law of physics or something...

Not Yaoi, Shonen ai, slash, m/m whatever.

A Hairy Situation

* * *

It was quiet. More than that, it was the _good_ quiet. 

There was a difference?

Hell yes there was a difference! To Genjo Sanzo, the good quiet meant that there were no villagers about to burst in begging that he bless their goats or some stupid shit like that. It meant that no cranky old abbot was waiting for him to give a spiritual pep talk to young monks who knew nothing about what they wanted, so they demanded that he tell them. Most importantly, it meant that there was no stupid monkey staring at him with plate sized golden eyes, waiting for him to finish his work so that they could go to the village/meadow/forest/any of the no less than thirty different places where Goku had found something neat/cool/possibly edible that he wanted to show Sanzo.

Two months had passed since Sanzo freed Goku from that strange mountain prison, and in that time, the good quiet had not only vanished without a trace, but Sanzo was pretty damned sure that the monkey might have eaten it.

But no, the good quiet had returned like some long lost friend now that Goku was...somewhere. The thought occurred to Sanzo that he didn't actually know where the monkey had disappeared to. But then his next thought assured him that he didn't care where his young charge had wandered off to if it meant he had a few moments of peace and quiet. Then that nice thought kindly proceeded to tell all of his other thoughts to shut the hell up before they unconsciously called the monkey back.

And so Priest Genjo Sanzo sat in his quarters, quite content with his companions of a newspaper, a cup of strong coffee, and a cigarette. His gun was resting within easy reach on the table, and the door was as securely locked as it could be without physically piling furniture in front of it. Preparing to dive right into the top story, Sanzo slid his reading glasses onto his face, never moving his eyes from the page in front of him.

But then he stopped. This was the _good _quiet...right? Sure, it seemed harmless enough, but what if it _wasn't_ the good quiet? The ancient philosophy of yin and yang applied to everything, even this case fell under its sadistically obnoxious reign. For if there was a good quiet, then indeed there was a bad quiet. And the bad quiet was...well, bad.

Yes, Goku was not here making noise or trouble. That was good. However, logic dictated that he was _somewhere_ and where ever that somewhere happened to turn out to be, then that same logic butted its annoyingly sensible self in to point out that the monkey was no doubt making noise and trouble there instead. Damn logic, whoever asked for its help in the first place?

Sanzo tried to bring his attention back to the newspaper with a slight growl, noticing for the first time that in his reverie, he had gripped the edges such that the thin paper was now wrinkled and torn beneath his vice like grip. Disgusted, he dropped the now ignored paper on the table and rose to his feet. Like it or not, the monkey was his responsibility. And if he was somewhere causing trouble, then there was no doubt that the blame would fall on the blond monk. Oh sure, they'd be nice and respectful. After all, you don't exactly waltz up to the select of the gods and start pointing fingers and making demands. But he would have to endure yet another strained explanation as to why the Sanzo monk's new charge was unfit for the temple way of life. Not that Sanzo cared what their opinions were anyway. His actions and choices were his and his alone, and he refused to be held accountable to the whims of a bunch of stuck up old monks. They should appreciate Goku's presence after all. It would teach them patience. A lot of patience.

"Just keep telling yourself that," Sanzo muttered under his breath as he left him room. He closed the door behind him and paused for a moment. Then, he listened.

There it was...

The happy sounds of a contented monkey, no doubt eating if the light hearted sensation was any indication. His direction chosen, Sanzo started off in search for Goku.

Two months ago it had seemed so simple, so easy as he stood at the base of Mount Gogyou. Climb the mountain, find the source of that ever present, helpless, annoying calling voice, shoot it, and move on. But when he stood in front of the small stone prison, his resolve had crumbled. What was this? What was this hopeless, dead place that he had found? And who was this person looking back at him like he had suddenly came from the heavens instead of trudged up the side of a mountain? And why the hell was that voice _still_ calling even as the small boy swore he hadn't been calling anyone?

So he had brought the boy, Goku, with him. After all, he had too. There was no way a situation this obnoxious could be anything other than the work of the gods. Manipulative bastards. At least once the boy was freed, the voice should have stopped, right?

Wrong! As soul rending and nerve wracking as the voice had been when it was so lonely and hopeless, it was astounding how much _worse_ it was now that the voice was happy! Holy shit, how long had this kid been up there? Everything was a new experience, a new discovery! Every new sight, every new sound, and for the love of Buddha, every new taste warranted a mental "Yahoo!" so sudden and so loud that Sanzo had thrown a coffee cup half way across the room in surprise the first time. Even the monks had noticed the large increase in the number of cigarettes the young Sanzo monk had begun to consume in an effort to dull the voice down to a soft roar. Shit, even the kid's dreams were loud! Sanzo had lived seventeen years without ever dreaming of a meat bun. Why the hell was he dreaming about them every night now?

But... those were preferable to the other dreams the boy had. The ones that made Sanzo sit up in bed, tangled in his covers and slick with sweat, fighting off loose fragments of images that flitted across the mind, never materializing into anything more than a sinking feeling that everything had gone terribly wrong, coupled with the confusion of not knowing exactly what it was that he was mourning the loss of. He particularly hated the day after these nightmares, as he was always left with a splitting headache and an even shorter temper. Even so, on those days, he couldn't stomach raising his voice or even his fan to Goku, who would be glued to his side like a shadow even worse than usual, never letting him leave his line of sight.

Those occurrences seemed to be lessening though, which led to times like this when a lone Sanzo went in search of Goku, instead of an accompanied Sanzo trying to figure out how to gain a few moments of privacy from his new "groupie".

Not that it was that hard to discern where his lost charge would be, even without their still present link to each other. After an insufferable week of Goku following his every step, the young boy finally began to explore his new surroundings without his guardian, which is to say that he went on a self imposed scavenger hunt to find all possible sources of food on the temple grounds. This narrowed Sanzo's search down to a handful of spots ranging from the kitchens to one particular peach tree that the monkey ABSOLUTELY knew NOT to touch.

Sanzo decided to forgo searching the kitchens and go straight to the peach tree.

Sure enough, as he left the shadow of the main temple, he saw a group of monks standing at the base of the lone tree in the clearing, bald heads glistening in the afternoon sun as they all craned their necks to peer through the foliage at something. Sanzo suppressed a sigh as he approached the group. He tried to look irritated (that wasn't very hard) so that the idle spectators would get the idea that their presence was not necessary.

As the first monks noticed his approaching presence, a small murmur swept through the crowd and the eldest monk of the group stepped forward. He bowed his head slightly in respect, "Master Sanzo, we have repeatedly advised your companion to cease his actions at once! But he disregards our words fully!"

"That's because you don't speak monkey," Sanzo muttered as he swept by the man and stood at the base of the tree. He looked up, and at first saw nothing...until the peach juice dripped out of no where and fell on his robes...inches from the Maten Scripture resting on his shoulders. Sanzo crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to keep from climbing the tree and dragging the culprit down himself. "Goku!" He called in a strained voice.

A rustle of leaves could be heard, and the monkey slipped from his limbed perch, looping his legs over the branch for support while his head dangled towards the ground. He was a good thirty feet up in the air, grasping a pilfered peach in one juice covered hand as he peered down at the monks through the thick strands of his wildly long hair. "Sanzo!" he said excited, "You want one? They're really good!"

"No Goku," Sanzo returned calmly. The elder monk approached from behind him.

"See? It is as I stated." He said with a slight glare up at the tree. "He must be removed."

Great, a monk's equivalent of "Told ya so!"...why didn't he just stick his tongue out to complete the look? Sanzo turned to face him, intent on dealing with this matter one nuisance at a time. "Are you going to go up there and 'remove' him?"

"Well...I, that is..." the monk stammered.

Sanzo turned away from him. "Then you're not needed here. And that goes for the rest of you too. If your ass isn't up that tree, then it's in the way. So get lost and find your entertainment elsewhere."

Well, one problem solved. Sanzo never turned around from the tree in front of him, but he heard the displeased murmurs that were hastily retreating back to the temple.

What a nuisance. Finally alone, Sanzo peered up into the tree once more. Goku had righted himself on the strong tree limb once more and had plucked two more of the ripened fruits into his hands.

"Goku, snack time's over, get down." Sanzo called up.

Goku stopped mid bite and looked down at his keeper, "But Sanzo, I'm still hungry!"

"I don't care, I've told you a million times not to eat those peaches."

Goku paused a moment, "Is a million a lot?"

"Just get your ass down here now!"

"But Sanzo," Goku whined in that particular tone that grated on the monk's nerves like nothing else, "There's plenty up here! Why can't I have a few more?"

"Because," Sanzo explained one more time, "They're for the Merciful Goddess."

"What? She can't share?" Goku tried to reason.

"No."

"Why?"

"I don't know," Sanzo growled impatiently, "Because she's fat."

_(Somewhere in Heaven, a very flustered goddess' aide was holding back one irate and not so merciful goddess. )_

Goku laughed loudly at that, and the branch beneath him swayed with his unsuppressed giggles. Sanzo's eyes narrowed, on second glance, that branch didn't seem near as sturdy as he'd first thought.

"Goku! Get down now before --"

_**CRACK!**_

"Oh shit!" Sanzo exclaimed as the large limb landed where he'd been standing the second before he'd dodged clear. Quick reflexes however, did not save him from being pelted by half a dozen ripened fruity projectiles. For a moment he stood there, peach juice dripping down his cheek from the one peach that had managed to clobber him with amazing accuracy--

_( "She shoots! She scores!" rang the triumphant cry of a Goddess in Heaven who had achieved sweet (and sticky) revenge on her wayward nephew )_

--and Sanzo swore to himself that if he ever managed to catch that monkey, he was dead. It was then that Goku made his location known in the form of a blood curdling cry.

"OOOWWWWW! OWOWOWOW! SANZO! HELP ME!"

"What the..." Sanzo muttered as he tried to find the monkey in the foliage. Well, the good news was that Goku had come down some from his previously high perch. The bad news was he was now stuck in the tree. The worse news was he was hanging precariously from a new, sturdier branch. The damn hilarious news was that he was hanging by his hair.

Sanzo tried to ignore the bit of humanity in him that told him that probably hurt like hell, and for a moment just stood and appreciated the irony of a monkey stuck in a tree. But Goku's continued yells soon were more than impossible to ignore and Sanzo tried to be heard over his wails. "Goku. Goku! Shut up and listen to me! Reach up and grab the branch. Wrap your arms and legs around it so you don't pull your damn head off!"

It was a highly unlikely scenario, but Goku seemed to take the warning to heart as he clung to branch with all his might. Because the painful yanking was no longer and issue, Goku ceased his cries, but he still sniffled a little as he hung unceremoniously from the limb, gazing at Sanzo with sad eyes as if he expected the monk to make it all better.

"Tch," The sound escaped Sanzo's mouth as he looked around in irritation. What the hell was he going to do now? Goku's long mane of hair was looped around the branches, and a glance at the boy's rigid form told him that the monkey wasn't planning on doing a damn thing to extract himself from this newest predicament he had concocted.

"Sanzo?" A small voice said, accompanied by a sniff.

'What?" Sazno called shortly. Where the hell had all the monks ran off too? He could make one of them go up the tree and cut Goku down. Might have known that they wouldn't be around when Sanzo really needed them. "Story of my damn life," he muttered in disgust.

"Am I going to have to stay up here forever?" Goku asked softly.

Sanzo sighed at the tone of the boys' voice. 'No Goku," he said as he spotted a discarded pair of gardeners sheers. So that was how the monks discovered Goku in the tree. One of them had come to prune it and found a boy sized parasite gnawing on the produce. He picked them up and eyed them with disdain. "I'm going to help you."

"Really?" Goku exclaimed, but his excitement was soon cut short as his movement pulled at the strands of hair caught in the branches around him.

"Of course you idiot! Now be still before that limb breaks too!"

Goku froze instantly. The only movement was his wide eyes as they kept focused on what Sanzo was doing.

Before his rational side could catch up with him, Sanzo found himself climbing a tree for the first time since...ever. He pulled himself up alongside Goku and surveyed the damage. It wasn't quite as bad as he had feared from the ground. If he had had the patience, he probably could have coaxed the tangled mess from the branches with little damage to the actual hair. But now that this little incident had happened, Sanzo knew what he had to do once they were out of the tree, although he didn't know how the hell he was to go about it. He was a monk raised among monks. What the hell did he know about giving a haircut?

Goku readjusted his grip around the limb, the movement earning him a scowl from the older monk. Sanzo picked a location at random and slowly began to cut at the mangled hair, trying to salvage as much of it _and_ the tree as he could. So he took his time, carefully clipping out branches and leaves.

Slowly the hair began to release it's death grip on the tree, and Sanzo allowed himself a small smile at his handiwork. Just a little bit more... "Goku, stop pulling," He said as he noticed the last few bits being pulled by the boy. The hair grew slack for a moment, then drew taut a second later. "Dammit Goku, I said- What the hell are you doing!"

Goku looked up at him innocently, his outstretched arm the only thing giving away that he had been reaching desperately for a peach that was hanging a tantalizingly close distance away. "I'm still hungry," Goku proclaimed as his mouth practically watered at the taunting fruit. "Sanzo? Could you get it for me?" He looked back hopefully before reaching once more for the peach.

"Dammit, you idiot!" Enough was enough. Screw nice and slow Sanzo thought as he sliced through the last remaining strands in one cut, finally releasing the trapped monkey. Unfortunately, that threw off the one handed balance that Goku was maintaining in his quest for the peach. In desperation, he clung to the closest thing within his reach, a white robed arm.

"Shit! Goku, NO!" Was all Sanzo managed to bite out before both he and Goku crashed through the foliage to land in jumbled heap at the base of the tree. Sanzo lay there a moment in stunned silence. Something had to be broken. Either an ankle, or an arm, or maybe even his neck. Yes, that sounded about right. Maybe he was dead right now, and that light above him was the gates to Heaven.

"Hey Sanzo?"

...or hell.

Sanzo reached into the folds of his robe and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. It wasn't until he had lit one and taken a well deserved drag that he opened his eyes and answered the monkey. "What is it?"

"I saved you a peach!"

Sanzo sat up with a stifled groan and looked at Goku, who was sitting cross-legged in front of him. His hair now fell at his shoulders in jagged uneven tufts. But Goku did not seem like he could have cared less as he offered the slightly bruised fruit to Sanzo.

Hell, after that ordeal, a simple peach was the least that Sanzo deserved. He accepted it slowly, which made the smile on Goku's face grow exponentially.

"Stupid monkey."

* * *

By the way, this is my first Saiyuki fic ever. So I would love to hear any and all comments! 


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